The joint family in India is fading away.....

Family is an interaction based unit with diverse and dynamic intra family relationships. Family plays a very important role in the development of a person and it has rightly been said the comer-stone of the human society. Family is a universal social phenomenon. The universality of the family can be accounted for by the indispensable functions it performs and the difficulty of ensuring the performance of these functions by any other social group. The fundamental functions of a family may be grouped in four categories: the sexual, the economic, the reproductive and the educational. The other functions of the family include socialisation, health care, civic awareness, social regulation, recreation and religious function. The most important role of a family is in socialisation. It is the family wherein a child is born. A long stay with the parents and other relations, because of his dependency on them, inculcates the emotional bond between the child and elder members of the family. And, here the child gets the earliest and the most fundamental lessons in socialisation. He is mentally formed according to the norms of the society, which get ingrained in him to re appear in his adult life as conscience and super-age. Further, authoritarian and equalitarian units of family, supply cultural traditions and other natural elements required for socialisation.

A joint family is a collection of more than one primary family, on the basis of close blood ties and common residence. Alternatively, “a joint family is a group of people who generally live under one roof, who share the common kitchen, who hold all property in common, take part in common family worship and are related to one another as some particular type of kindred.” This definition refers to an ideal situation of family in terms of its corporate character. In structural terms, joint family implies living together of members of two or more elementary families both lineally and laterally. When a joint family consists of grandparents, parents, grandsons and daughter, it is called a lineal joint family.

The joint family system is more popular with agriculturists compared to industrial settings because the advantage of a productive unit provided by the joint family. In addition, the joint family system ensures satisfaction of basic needs of all its embers. The unemployed, old, orphans, widows and disabled are, thus, protected from and odd. Members of a joint family share the responsibilities according to their capacity and each work are thus distributed, thereby each member spares enough time for leisure. In spite of these advantages, the joint family system is gradually losing grounds.